He had been enrolled in Palmetto High School for two weeks, and so far everything was going well. He told Dillon so. “I hope I make the soccer team. Tryouts are next week.”
“No sweat.” Dillon flipped over a fish filet. “Do you miss New York?”
“Not really. I kinda like living in a small town. Do you?”
Before answering, Dillon glanced toward the house. Graham followed his gaze. They could see his mom through the kitchen window. “Yeah, I like it here,” Dillon said, bringing his attention back to the grill.
“What’ll you do when the plant is finished? Will you stay here or go somewhere else?” Since the subject had come up, Graham welcomed the opportunity to ask Dillon about his future. It would be great if Dillon’s future somehow coincided with his.
“The plant is a long way from being finished,” Dillon said. “Years. After that, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I don’t plan that far ahead.”
“How come?”
“I found out that it didn’t do any good.”
Jade poked her head through the back door. “Everything else is ready. We’re waiting on you menfolks.”
“Not anymore. The fish is ready,” Dillon called back. “Graham, turn off the gas, please.”
“Sure.” His mother’s interruption had come at an inopportune time. Dillon’s last statement puzzled him because it contradicted his mother’s belief that one should set specific goals and work toward them no matter what setbacks arose. He would also have liked some guarantee that Dillon would be around for a long time yet.
“Be sure the knob is shut all the way off,” Dillon cautioned him.
“I will.”
Dillon dished up the fish filets and carried the platter through the back door, which Jade was holding open for him. Graham watched as she bent down and sniffed the grilled fish, licking her lips in anticipation. Dillon said something that made her laugh.
Suddenly feeling buoyant again, Graham carefully turned off the gas and followed them indoors. He always liked having Dillon to dinner, but tonight there was a party atmosphere in the house. He wasn’t sure what they were celebrating and didn’t care. All that mattered was that his mom seemed more relaxed than she had been since leaving New York. Maybe she was taking to heart what he had told her a few weeks ago about being too uptight. Tonight she was plumb bouncy.
She had changed clothes when she came in from work and now had on an outfit made of some soft, floaty, white material. Friends told him all the time that his mom was hot-looking, and it was true. As they sat down to dinner, she looked exceptionally pretty.
He was asked to say grace and mumbled a hasty prayer of thanksgiving. As they were filling their plates, he asked, “Can we play Pictionary after dinner? Dillon and me’ll be partners again like before.”
“Not on your life!” Jade exclaimed. She clutched her knife and hammered the handle on the table. “You two cheated last time.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call their hand signals cheating,” Cathy said diplomatically.
“It was cheating,” Jade said adamantly.
“I take exception to that. Take it back.”
Dillon reached across the corner of the table and slid his hand beneath her hair, squeezing her neck. Reflexively, she raised her shoulder and tilted her head to one side, trapping his hand between her cheek and shoulder.
There was an instantaneous change in her expression, Graham noticed. She couldn’t have looked more stunned if Dillon had gotten up on the table and started dancing naked. Her head popped up, and she turned to him.
“I take it back.”
Her voice sounded funny, too, like she had just swallowed a shot of straight whiskey. Her cheeks turned red, and she was breathing like she’d been doing calisthenics. They continued looking at each other long after Dillon slowly removed his hand from her neck. When they finally broke their stare, Dillon began buttering his corn on the cob. His mom seemed at a loss. She stared down at her plate and fiddled with her silverware like she’d never seen any before and wasn’t sure how to handle it.
Graham smiled to himself. If his mom and Dillon didn’t want to have sex, then he didn’t know shit from Shinola.
* * *
“I still can’t get over it. Every time I remember it, I want to pinch myself to make sure it really happened.” Jade turned to Dillon, who was seated with her in the porch swing she had recently installed. “It did, didn’t it? This isn’t a dream?”
“Undoubtedly a dream for the Parkers. More like a nightmare for the Patchetts. You’ve got them running scared.”
“Oh, I’m real scary, all right,” she said, laughing.